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It’s now official that the original franchise that put the FPS genre on the map is joining the fray of the budding FPS e-sports scene with Quake Champions. It’s invariably a revival of its arena shooter franchise with the twist of the growing popularity of being a team-based shooters like Overwatch and Team Fortress 2.

Despite the hype of hardcore Quake fans, Quake champions had a relatively odd reaction when it was showcased in Quakecon 2016. At this point, it’s clear that the developers have to work on a few more things for its marketing before they can assume Steam keys will fly off virtual shelves upon its release in, presumably, late 2017 or early 2018.

Steam Keys E-Sports: Street Fighter Meets Quake

The first thing Tim Willits, creative director of the game, presented was that it wasn’t at all going to change from how diehards know the franchase. High-speed, technical combat with rocket jumping and all the complications that put Quake on the map were still in the game. With a showcase of the classic weaponry in a new engine and era, the audience simply lapped up everything that was thrown at them – that is, until the developers showcased the heroes usable in-game.

Similar to Mobas like League of Legends and Dota or like other class-based shooters like Overwatch, Quake Champions has its, well, champions do unique things like blinking, acrobatics, flying, and a ton of other stuff that set them apart from other champions, giving them distinct advantages over others. While that sounds great for the common gamer, it wasn’t too well received by the truly diehard Quake fans.

The devs, id Software, hoped that this would be a bit more welcomed by their target audience as they see the champion element of the game more as a supplementary element than anything else, setting itself apart from the likes of Mobas and other team-based shooters by having more focus on individual skill rather than the rock-paper-scissors element these other games have for their class mechanics.

id Software knows exactly that there’s this spot for their classic, high-speed, arena-style game in the industry. However, their biggest fear is ending up making Quake 3 once more, but only with improved visuals. This is the sole reason as to why they want the champions element within the game. But the reaction to it is absolutely mixed at best and quite hostile at worst. There are already tons of comments on the internet that Quake Champions should either have the option to turn off the champion uniqueness and possibly be just as moddable as the previous Quake games. Granted, id Software believes that there is more depth in strategy this way, but they may be forgetting what Quake is famous for: Pure skill.

“Street Fighter Meets Quake,” is what id Software thinks of Quake Champions. It is in the sense that everybody has natural moves like heavy kicks, heavy punches, light kicks and etc., but each character has a certain tinge of uniqueness that sets them apart from one another. However, at the end of the day, no matter what sort of special moves you have, it is always the normal moves (in Quake’s case, normal shooting) is what is going to win you the match. As much as that kind of makes sense, what team-based shooter ISN’T about the shooting? It’s a pretty generic description of what they’re going for, to be completely honest.

There’s going to be a lot more kinks for them to work on if they’re going to want this to be accepted by their loyal fanbase, let alone the casual fanbase that is more likely to get the game e-sports status than any other demographic. I’m feeling quite optimistic about Quake Champions and that it can safely enter the major stage of e-sports, but id Software has a lot of work to do before those Steam keys sell.

The latest banwave from Blizzard happened just on the 1st of July and it’s been glorious. Tons of people have been banned and the servers haven’t felt cleaner. I knew that one Soldier 76 in that one game was just too good to be playing fairly!

But I digress; Blizzard has been doing a fantastic job in maintaining the integrity of the game by quickly taking out these script kiddies before their taint spreads farther unlike Valve with their treatment of Team Fortress 2. While CS:GO has its automated VAC bans, it doesn’t take everything out and, sometimes, a lot of hacks get right through, only banning the hackers when a live moderator steps in. And, even then, they aren’t too aggressive on the matter. Hackers on Steam sure get the full worth of their Steam keys.

Unfortunately, for Blizzard’s side, script kiddies certainly get punched in the nuts way before they can start doing stupid crap. But what’s even more hilarious is the fact that these same cheaters have the nerve, gall, balls, or whatever you want to call it, to get angry AT Blizzard for an apparently “unfair” ban.

The failure due to the absence of mind of these people are just astonishing. From CS:GO’s VAC porn reddit page, a certain redditor presented to the public the reactions of people in a unnamed gaming forum where they accept cheating fully. I swear that you will not believe what you’ll be reading. In fact, all the reactions in the photo album of reaction screenshots simply scream “staged” in every sense of the word due to how absolutely baffling the reactions are. Then again, there are stranger things in the world.

You can click on the link above to see the full album of the reactions, but here are a couple down below as a sample of what to expect. Enjoy.

There’s been a lot of hubbub surrounding CS:GO, especially concerning the gambling scandal, iffy balance patching by Valve, and a ton of other stuff. The video below explains how things could be worse or better, depending on your view of it.

Steam Account Value: The Gritty Rundown

Without a doubt, CS:GO has been seeing decreasing numbers, not just in viewership, but also in players. While the top teams like SK and Liquid are unaffected, many other players, especially casual players, are making the shift towards Overwatch or other E-sports-worthy games, dismayed by the progress CS:GO is having at the moment. When compared to a juggernaut newbie like Overwatch, CS:GO simply doesn’t have the personality or character of the former.

Surely, the gambling scandal of a few weeks back couldn’t have done it any favors either as that kind of action can be something that folks will be dismayed into taking games seriously. Especially with the prospect of throwing games comes into question for money and not just for skins anymore.

CS:GO certainly could have had a better run, but as things look as of now, it certainly isn’t pretty. Fortunately, the pro scene is still flourishing with large upsets from the latest major tournaments. Folks like Team Liquid certainly has a lot of Steam account value considering the effort they go through in improving. So long as top tier teams like Liquid and SK gaming are functioning well, there won’t be any real danger of the CS:GO e-sports scene dying. Of course, there’s still always the danger of diminished interest from viewers forcing the ESL folks to eventually pull the plug on the scene when it becomes unprofitable for the trouble it is worth. Hopefully, that won’t ever come to pass and CS:GO goes on to live a long and healthy e-sports life. Until then, keep practicing until you get to the pro leagues or your Steam account value goes crazily high due to all your achievements in the game.

Rimworld is this neat little gem that only Steam account users will have the hotness for. It’s a pretty awesome Dwarf Fortress esque game with some hints of the unnatural sci-fi that one may know from the Firefly series. The developers of said game even have this great deal for Early Access Steam keys. Then douchebags had to muck it up.

The whole story here is that the devs of Rimworld, Ludeon Studios, decided to put out a promo so that they could earn more money. God knows these indie developers need all the help that they could get. They offered that, instead of buying Steam keys from Steam itself, that takes a 30-40% pay cut from the developers with every unit sold, people interested in Rimworld should opt to purchase from their site instead. Naturally, Steam sells them cheaper than Ludeon does so, to sweeten the pot, Ludeon would send free Steam keys to put into any Steam account for those that bought the non-Steam version of the game. Simply typing in their purchase email was enough to merit this free Steam key of Rimworld. It’s essentially getting two copies for the price of a slightly higher one.

So basically, more money for Ludeon Studios and shiny Steam keys for longtime supporters. Everybody wins. RimWorld is a massive undertaking, too. Ludeon deserves every penny they get.

Unfortunately, the Steam keys black market can be pretty brutal for the uninitiated. These fraudulent rapscallions descended upon the hapless developer in full force. In a blog post, Sylvester of Ludeon explained:

“If you bought before today, you can still get a key. However, I’ve been forced to stop offering Steam keys for those who buy today and in the future. We’ve been getting hammered by fraudsters who are obviously more experienced at this than I. Shutting it down for now is the only way to avoid thousands of dollars in chargeback fees and lost sales. It’s time to take a breather, because I can’t fight this ‘live.’”

With tons of chargebacks done with those free Steam CD keys, Ludeon lost more money than what would normally be normally sound for a developer of their level. Not to mention the Steam keys used in nefariously fraudulent actions are now being banned.

The plight facing RimWorld and Ludeon Studios’ shines a light on one of the biggest issues in PC game publishing right now: that developers may face crushing chargeback fees from stolen credit cards used to buy Steam keys. Fraudsters make money by selling these keys on via eBay-style PC game websites.

This is a tough one for Ludeon and I do hope it’s something they can recover from.

There’s been a lot of drama about the illegal online gambling market related to CS:GO’s community and it certainly hasn’t slowed down. Two prominent CS:GO YouTubers, Trevor “TmarTn” and Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell, are part of all this hubbub. Normally, it would be fine for Valve to just let go of this gambling crap except that these two YouTubers are at the center of it all by being the owners of said gambling sites and not saying anything about the matter at all in any of their vids. Talking about the sites isn’t necessarily punishable, but being at the head of it is clearly another story.

This revelation, of course, breaks all kinds of rules, both written and unspoken (it’s pretty illegal) though the YouTubers both claim that they never hid their involvement with CSGOlotto. However, there has been no mention in any of their videos or video descriptions stating that they are the owners of the site.

Valve’s been trying to get these sites shutdown for the longest time but has still been unsuccessful to this date. The real issue here is that, while it’s being claimed that these slot machine-esque gambling system of the sites via lootboxes is fine because the skin rewards are purely cosmetic in the game and have no real bearing in performance, but the skins can sell for thousands upon thousands of dollars. With that in mind, it’s now, essentially, become real gambling. The legal gambling age in the US is 21. What age is the biggest demographic for shooters in general? Kids. There’s the real problem.

What’s more, there are a number of websites, like CSGOlotto, set up with the sole intention of promoting gambling where you can use your gun skins as tokens and win bigger and better skins or lose out. Considering the amount of money at stake with these skins, you start to see why it could be a bit of a problem for two YouTubers with a hefty sum of CSGO videos on their channels to promote a website like this and not disclose that they own it.

The Steam Account Drama Continues

Since this CSGO gambling scandal broke, however, Martin has deleted almost everything related to the scandal from his Twitter and YouTube accounts, while Valve have added a huge anti-scam warning to CSGOlotto when you try to log into the site via Steam account. It certainly isn’t a good scandal to have in the game considering that the playerbase is getting splintered due to the advent of Overwatch. Hopefully, everything goes back to normal and stuff like this isn’t on anybody’s Steam account news feed anymore.

Valve has been one of the most powerful, if not the most, and has changed the very face of how we buy and play our video games. But as almighty as Valve is, it isn’t at all immune to certain systems that aim to abuse Valve and milk it indirectly of a lot of cash. Most notably, gambling websites focused on the extremely popular CS:GO have been a thorn in Valve’s side ever since the game came into existence by continuously breaking their end user agreement.

Back in 2011, Valve added the ability for Steam account users to trade in-game items for certain games. While it was an awesome system, it unfortunately opened the doors to abuse with certain sites using the OpenID API to convert in-game items to real world money. Valve never supported this and they don’t at all have anything to do with it. It’s simply an awful coincidence.

Valve also stated that Steam-based gambling sites like CS:GOlotto will be taken to court if there is no progress to be made in them willingly shutting down operations.

“Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity,” posted Valve’s Erik Johnson.

It’s always been an issue for Valve in many games that have some trading support and has gone by through the years relatively unnoticed, but this recent CS:GO scandal involving some popular CS:GO YouTubers may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Steam Keys: What’s the Big Deal?

Websites that deal with in-game item sales, sell Steam keys, Steam codes, or cheap Steam games, or merely gamble indirectly are already walking a very, very fine line in the first place. What more for websites that deal with direct gambling that go against not only a specific game’s EULA, but also against Valve’s and, not to mention, possibly criminal in the United States due to the possibility of minors engaging in said gambling? Like the earlier mention of the CS:GO scandal, these popular YouTubers may have inadvertently encouraged minors to go gamble. That’s a big no-no. Good on Valve for taking measures in taking these sites down. They are well within their rights to do so.

Bad news for Team Fortress 2 as their strongest competitor, Overwatch, has released trailers and news on a new character in the game and balances / fixes as well. As Team Fortress 2 just released their competitive mode and new quick match mode, Overwatch coincidentally (I would like to think) has new content. This will for sure affect the TF2 Market again.

TF2 Market in Danger Again

PATCH FEATURES

New Hero: Ana (Support)
After being out of the fight for several years, one of Overwatch’s founding members is returning. Introducing Ana—a battle-scarred veteran who supports her teammates from a distance using a unique and highly specialized collection of weapons.

Ana’s primary weapon is her Biotic Rifle, which fires long-range darts that can restore the health of her allies or deal ongoing damage to her enemies. Meanwhile, her Biotic Grenade is perfect for a close-quarters clash, simultaneously healing teammates and injuring foes caught in its small area of effect. (Affected allies will also receive a temporary increase to all incoming healing, while affected enemies can’t be healed for a few moments.) And if the battle starts to get out of hand, Ana’s sidearm can fire a Sleep Dart, knocking her adversaries unconscious.

If a match goes into Overtime for more than 20 seconds, the fuse will now start to “burn down” more quickly

Players now respawn more slowly during Overtime (increased spawn time by 2 seconds)

Competitive Play

Competitive Play matches can now only have one of each hero per team. For more info, click here.

Miscellaneous

Added Ana as an AI-controlled hero in Practice vs. AI, Play vs. AI, and Custom Game modes

Timing on Zenyatta’s Rapid Discord achievement is more lenient

Targeted teammates now respond by saying “I’m with you,” when players use the “Group Up” communication

Renamed five sprays to avoid duplicate titles

You might say that this doesn’t concern Team Fortress 2. Absolutely the opposite. This greatly affects Team Fortress 2 because it fuels again the hype train in Overwatch. People will trade TF2 again for Overwatch because of this new character and changes. Hopefully this wouldn’t though because I have love for both games.

Many have forgotten about the kerfuffle Evolve caused when it simply wasn’t up to par with its hype. Abruptly, the massive playerbase of the Evolve at launch went down to an almost staggering insignificance, slowing down matchmaking by a ton for the very few players that decided to stick it out. Just recently, Evolve disappeared from the Steam store and was inaccessible with any Steam account that already had it, only to come back up the next day as in free-to-play format called Evolve: Stage 2. Sounds familiar to most MMO stories of F2P redemption.

There are several new modes, characters, maps, and a whole slew of other unlockables in Stage 2 and will continue the F2P trend in the months to come. Surprisingly, however, Evolve has gone back to its beta phase after it’s already been live for quite some time now. It seems that Turtle Rock is pulling a Realm Reborn with the IP albeit in a more open fashion.

The developers claim that it’s gone back to beta due to their goal of tweaking the user interface, removing certain bugs, and even overhauling some elements of the game drastically.

“When Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected,” as it is written on the developer’s website, “Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment — for players and for us.”

This statement was due to the issue that Evolve put out some very expensive DLC for Steam account users despite the earlier claims of delivering new content for free.

While it was said that founders or loyal players who have paid and played the original Evolve launch would be getting rewards and their content progress to carry over. Unfortunately, some people have experienced that all their work in the previous build of the game were all but erased, leaving them dissatisfied with the transition to F2P. Those may just be anomalous errors on the developer’s part, but if this is true for all other Steam accounts, then the backlash will be monumental.

This is, however, all for the PC version, aka. on Steam. Consoles will be untouched until Turtle Rock finishes their work past the beta phase of stage 2. Until then, console players that are interested in playing the game will still have to buy the launch retail of Evolve for the time being. This certainly might take a while.

Overwatch is owning the first person shooter market now. Actually, Overwatch is owning the gaming market. So what does old man Team Fortress 2 doing about it? Will the dying game still try to retaliate? TF2 trading blows versus Overwatch? Well, these new updates, in my opinion, is an attempt to do so. Hey correct me if I’m wrong but I think they are trying to but this is just a “at least we tried” stuff going on.

TF2 Trading: News

I heard that there will be updates this month in Team Fortress 2 and here are the said updates (from their official website):

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

Internal system changes in preparation for a future update

Updated the localization files

sad

Yeah, these are just fixes. I don’t have news on the other updates but it seems people are telling everyone to not be hyped about it which I agree on. I really think TF2 should be put down. More TF2 Items won’t cut it as well. Pessimism from me for days. Can’t help it since I’m just stating the truth.

So, this Steam Summer Sale is just as insane as any other Summer Sale, but it may just be the craziest one yet. Late 2015 to early 2016 has been a pretty amazing year for gamers in general with so many good releases like Dark Souls III and a bunch of other games that I really don’t care about. With that said, you know you’re going to hurt your wallet with the tons of games you will want to buy that increases your Steam account value. Past this nifty little vid about how awesome the sale is going on right now is a small list of the first two days of the sale, July 23-24, so that you can plan out your purchases, if any, much better than just rummaging through the Steam store and inadvertently choking the life out of your Steam account with unnecessary purchases.

We’ll be updating this page for every day that there are additional information on the new sales until the very end.

Steam Account Value: Sales on!

Steam Summer Picnic Sale 2016 – Day 1

Sale runs from June 23rd – July 4th.

This year’s deals will remain at the same price for the entire sale (like the 2015 Winter Sale). You should be safe to buy a game at any discount as it’ll be that price for the entire sale. There will still be a post each day to focus on featured deals.